


In words unwritten

by LiveOakWithMoss



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Cousin Incest, Illustrated, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, References to Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-26
Updated: 2014-08-26
Packaged: 2018-02-14 23:06:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2206467
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LiveOakWithMoss/pseuds/LiveOakWithMoss
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Maedhros attempts to write a letter to his cousin.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In words unwritten

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Cygnete](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cygnete/gifts).



> 0\. Part of my fic/art exchange with Silje, who gave me [this spectacular picture](http://silmarillle.tumblr.com/post/95849832534/maedhros-in-himring-writing-letters-to-fingon) as my prompt. I have attempted to do it justice.  
> 1\. The first part of our exchange can be seen [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2092197).

The candles cast a flickering light on the walls, and Maedhros stared at their golden glow, trying to convince himself that he felt their warmth. Outside, the wind howled. It howled all the time now, and drove everyone within the fortress a little bit mad with its incessant wail. Maglor had taken to composing music to play along with the wind’s bluster, and sometimes it would even bring a smile to Maedhros’ lips to watch his brother pacing the ramparts with his harp, throwing his song into the wind, his hair streaming behind him as he sang in defiance of the gale. 

Maedhros spun the quill absently in his hand and wondered at the folly of trying to write to his cousin. 

What would Fingon expect? What would he desire? A letter full of news, a letter full of meaning, a letter full of love? 

Of course, Fingon – Fingon as he had been – would always choose love. However impossible that seemed to Maedhros now. He closed his eyes, trying to recapture those moments of perfect clarity, those moments he knew, bone deep, that Fingon loved him.  

_I am yours, Maitimo, you have me heart and soul. You are so beautiful, Maitimo, how I love you –_  

_\- the clangor of chains, the rasp of nails -_

_Ah, my fair sweet child, how you shine. See? I shall show you…_

The quill nearly snapped in his hand as Maedhros flinched back convulsively. The image of Fingon laughing up at him had been replaced by the image of a golden hand holding before him a lump of his own flesh, glistening red in oily torchlight… 

He shuddered so hard the quill dropped from his nerveless hand and he pushed himself back from the desk, feeling sickened. He took several deep breaths, then carefully picked up the quill again and placed it into the ink well. 

He stared down at the paper before him, only a few words, written with painstaking care, across the top. He reached out and crumpled it violently, dropping it onto the pile of his other failed attempts. 

So many failures. 

What was he doing, writing to Fingon at all? 

_I am no longer beautiful for you, I am no longer whole, I am no longer worthy – if ever I was – of your love._

What was _left_ of him for his cousin to love?

Then the longing rose up in him again, the longing he feared and hated, and that choked him with its strength, wrapping around his throat with horrible familiarity.

_Take me back to the mountain._  

How he longed for the silence. 

_Hang me once more in chains._

He had left part of himself there, on that cliff-face, and if only, if only he could reclaim it… 

_Dear Findekáno,_ he would write, with the steady and precise hand that came from hours of brutal, dull practice, _Sweet_ _Findekáno, my dear one, my cousin, my love_ – though of course, he was never so demonstrative in his letters – _Findekáno –_

_– you should have left me there._  

He closed his eyes, and the wind screamed once more in his ears, blotting out the memory of that terrible, golden voice. The song of the chains rang loud, and the pain in his wrist, the numbness in his hand – _so vivid, so clear, he could feel it still_ – was so much purer than the damage that those lovely hands had wrought on him in the depths of Angband, tearing him without and within… 

On Thangorodrim, the torment was mere iron and solitude. 

Here, in the heavy stone of Himring, in the midst of dreadful mundanity and the dull labor of ruling as its lord, all the other torments returned. They came to him in sleep, crowding close, singing their memories into his ears so that he woke drenched in sweat and convulsed with such violent tremors that he retched. 

_Sing for me, beautiful one, sing me the plans of your brothers, sing me the tale of your people, tell me all and I will free you…_  

Some nights he would raise his hands to his face and flinch back in shock from the stump of his right wrist. 

_Come back to me, come back to me, Maitimo, I have you, I am taking you away, you are free…_  

Some nights he would reach to touch his hair, amazed to find it once more long and shining – had it not been torn out at the roots? He remembered it in bloody clumps at his feet; he remembered it shorn close to his head as he lay in fever in the healers’ tent. 

_Coppertop and copperskin and copper head to toe, ah, it suits you, my precious one, how I love you dressed in naught but blood…_  

Some nights he knew he screamed, because Maglor would appear at his side, hair loose over his shoulders, waiting for him to wake fully before touching him lightly, hands gentle, murmuring, “You are safe, Maitimo, you are safe, I am here, it’s over…” 

_Never_ , he wanted to spit back at his brother _, it will never be over. I will never be safe again, because they are_ inside _me, they live there now, and I cannot tell the memory of the voice of my beloved from the voice of my tormentor._

But instead he would force stillness, and allow Maglor to arrange himself behind him in the bed, tugging him back lightly against his chest. Maedhros would allow his eyes to close, and his brother would sing as he braided Maedhros’ tangled hair, a task that was Maglor’s now, for re-mastering the sword and quill was one thing, but braids quite another. 

_How stupid this all is_ , he thought with bitter humor, staring at the pile of crumpled paper. _I can wield a sword as well as I ever did, but I must rely on my brother to braid my hair, as if I were a child once more. I have learned to write with my left hand, but I cannot manage the simplest letter to my best friend. My cousin, my prince._

_My beloved._  

He longed to be able to lose himself in simple desire. He longed to be able to close his eyes and hear Fingon’s breathless laughter as he pushed his cousin up against the wall of the stables in Tirion; he longed to drift off in fantasies of Fingon’s arms tight around him, of his thighs wrapped around Maedhros’ waist, of those beautiful eyes closed in pleasure, and the way he’d moan when Maedhros bit lightly at his ear. 

He would return even to those long, painful nights on the shores of Lake Mithrim, when he was growing stronger with Fingon at his side, and his cousin would watch him with a mixture of tenderness and such banked anger that Maedhros would burn with it. Those nights they would find each other in bed and tear at each other, Maedhros still unable to bear too much softness, and Fingon trying desperately to reconcile his resentment with his love. 

_Forgive me the ice, beloved, forgive me the blood on your hands at Alqualondë –_

_Forgive you?_ Fingon would snarl. _You think it so easy?_  

Even that had been better than this.

Was it the distance that made the voices of Angband so much louder than that of his cousin? Was it the silence of the stone walls that magnified his nightmares and shut out memories of love and pleasure? 

_Just write the damn letter._

But he didn’t. 

And so the candles burned low, and Maedhros stared into the past as shadow memories wrapped claws around his throat and dug trenches under his eyes and bit gouges into his arms; as blue eyes and flaming gold stared at him with equal intensity; as those low voices mingled together in his ears and the ghostly arms that closed around him roused both fear and desire, until the memories were more vivid than the candlelight painting the walls. 

The wind howled, and the candles died, and the letter remained unwritten.

 


End file.
